Rock's Backpages is the world's most comprehensive online database of pop music writing, a unique resource unavailable elsewhere online. It contains an
ever-expanding collection of primary-source full-text articles from the music and mainstream press from the 1950s to the present day, along with a collection of
exclusive audio interviews.

Subscriptions to Rock’s Backpages are available for institutional or personal use.

For institutions, Rock's Backpages is provided as an unlimited access subscription, meaning that all staff, students and library patrons have
unrestricted remote and on-site access to each text and audio file in the database. For full terms, please click here.

Rock's Backpages is the world's most comprehensive online database of pop music writing, a unique resource unavailable elsewhere online. It contains an
ever-expanding collection of primary-source full-text articles from the music and mainstream press from the 1950s to the present day, along with a collection of
exclusive audio interviews.

Subscriptions to Rock’s Backpages are available for institutional or personal use.

For institutions, Rock's Backpages is provided as an unlimited access subscription, meaning that all staff, students and library patrons have
unrestricted remote and on-site access to each text and audio file in the database. For full terms, please click here.

Library

Services

Library Search

Michael Lydon

I've loved music ever since I wore out Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington records in high school. 'Hit the Road Jack' introduced me to Ray Charles. A girlfriend turned me on to Chuck Berry, and we dug James Brown at the Apollo. In '64 I panned the Beatles in the college paper and praised Martha and the Vandellas instead--my first rock writing. After covering civil rights in Mississippi, I reported on "Swinging London" for Newsweek. An interview with John--abrasive - and Paul - charming - converted me to the Beatles. Then I transferred to San Francisco as Haight-Ashbury hippies made headliness. The Fillmore was my beat; Janis and Jerry my inside sources. At Montery Pop I sat mindblown in the press section.

In the 70s I met pianist Ellen Mandel and got a Gibson flat-top, a harmonica, a Bob Dylan songbook, and started writing songs and climbing on stages. We worked unpaid with the equally unknown Robin Williams. I wrote my second book, Boogie Lightning. We moved to New York, opened for Muddy Waters in Boston. In the '90s I wrote Ray Charles: Man and Music. Today I'm writing books and playing East Village clubs with a jazz combo. When I get back grins from couples singing the chorus, I thank the greats who inspired me, but I'm also thinking, "Look out world, here comes Michael Lydon!"

Books: Rock Folk (1971) Boogie Lightning (1975) How to Succeed in Show Business by Really Trying (1985) Writing and Life (1995) Ray Charles: Man and Music (1999) Flashbacks (2003)

When Bo's not being a boxer, truck driver, gunslinger, lumberjack etc. he's being A Man - a husband and father, dealing with life in the USA. The Gunslinger tells Michael Lydon of record company rip-offs, dealin' with the po-lice and the very meaning of life itself.

Recorded during the Dead's 1969 peak, Garcia looks back to the early days of the Warlocks, the Acid Tests, goes through the albums to date (including the soon-to-be-released Live/Dead) and expounds on the music.